Mali targets 800,000 T cotton per year by 2018 after output jump

This on the back of improved farm inputs, the head of the state-owned textile development firm CMDT said on Thursday.

Kalfa Sanogo said final production figures for the season stood at 552,000 tonnes, compared with 440,000 tonnes the previous season.

“The government increased input subsidies and lowered the price of fertilisers. This significant grant from the state gave a lot of momentum to cotton production,” Sanogo told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday in Bamako.

Mali, Africa’s third biggest gold producer behind South Africa and Ghana, also counts cotton as one of its main exports.

Sanogo said the West African nation was expecting to produce 650,000 tonnes in the 2015-2016 season, 725,000 tonnes in 2016-2017, and 800,000 tonnes in 2017-2018, according to CMDT’s five-year development plan.

He said Mali plans to invest between 60 to 70 billion CFA francs per year to achieve its targets.

“Keeping the target means continuing measures that helped to attain the 25 per cent jump in output this year,” he said.